January 12, 2009

BULLDOGS LOOK FOR NEXT WIN, TRAVEL TO YALE FOR 7 P.M. BOUT TUESDAY NIGHT

Monday, January 12, 2009

BULLDOGS LOOK FOR NEXT WIN, TRAVEL TO YALE FOR 7 P.M. BOUT TUESDAY NIGHT

THE MATCHUP - Bryant at Yale
Date: January 13, 2009
Time: 7:00 p.m.
Location: New Haven, Conn.
Arena: John J. Lee Amphitheater (2,532)
Series: First Meeting

BRYANT BULLDOGS UPDATE
The Bulldogs are looking to recover from a tough loss at Brown that saw Bryant nearly complete a second-half comeback but fall just short, 64-62. Junior Kelsey O'Keefe scored a season- and gamehigh 26 points in the contest, earning her fourth double-double of the season (11 rebounds).

On the year, Bryant is led by 13.4 points per game from O'Keefe, who joined the 1,000-point club with her first basket in Dec. 1's home-opening win. The co-captain also paces the Bulldogs on the glass, collecting 7.5 boards per contest while shooting 72.2 percent from the line and dishing out 31 assists. Sophomore Siamone Bennett's 20 blocks and 14 steals lead the team, while junior Kristin Mraz has begun to take over duties at the point, turning it on as of late to average 10.3 points per game over the last four contests. The junior guard also has a team-high 37 helpers.

THE GAME
Today's 7 p.m. matchup is the first-ever meeting between the Bulldogs of Bryant and the Bulldogs of Yale. It is the third time Bryant has squared off against an Ivy League team this season and the second-straight game against an Ivy League opponent.

SCOUTING YALE (6-7)
Yale comes off a 74-66 win over transitional team NJIT on Friday at the John J. Lee Amphitheater. Four Bulldogs scored in doubled digits, led by 12 points apiece from Melissa Colborne, Jamie Van Horne and Kaitlyn Lillemoe, as Yale shot a shade under 50 percent (49.2) from the floor.

Colborne paces the team on the year, averaging 17. 3 points per game, while Haywood Wright averages 9.9 points per game while leading the team on the glass with 7.8 boards per outing to compliment her team-high 19 blocks. Colborne hits 46 percent from the field (64-of-139), while Yoyo Greenfield and Van Horne are stellar from beyond the arc, shooting 41.7 and 37.9 percent, respectively.

YALE VS. THE NORTHEAST CONFERENCE
The Bulldogs have squared off against members of the NEC just once this season. And while the Bulldogs can't call themselves Northeast Conference members quite yet, here is how Yale fared against the Bulldogs' future conference opponents:
12/21 vs. Quinnipiac Win, 77-73 (OT)

Yale has also faced off against three common Bulldog opponents outside the NEC in the 2008-09 season. Yale escaped with a 65-63 win over Holy Cross at the Hart Center (Bryant fell, 73-54), but shared the same fate as Bryant against both the University of New Hampshire (both wins) and St. Bonaventure University (both losses).

LAST TIME OUT
With 11 seconds remaining in a 62-61 game that favored Brown University, Bryant's top free throw shooter Kelsey O'Keefe (Warren, Mass.) went to the line for a pair of free throws. The first fell, but not the second, knotting the game at 62-62. And while the shot completed a season-high 26-point performance for the junior, it wouldn't be enough to keep the Bears from scoring on a pair of freebies of their own in the waning seconds of the contest as the Bryant University women's basketball team dropped a heartbreaker to intrastate rival Brown, 64-62, Saturday afternoon at the Pizzitola Sports Center.

WHAT REALLY HAPPENED? BRYANT at BROWN (1/10/09)
The Bulldogs (5-10) nearly completed the comeback, using 43.5 percent second-frame shooting to make up a 35-29 halftime deficit, but fell just short in a game that was closely contested until the very last second.

Exiting the halftime break, Bryant started to cut into the Bears' lead 3:14 into the second session, narrowing the home side's lead to 39-36 off a Courtney Schermerhorn (Lowell, Mass.) basket from downtown.

Brown (2-12) made it a six-point advantage again on the next possession, but the Bulldogs continued to threaten, finally capitalizing on a quick transition three from sharpshooting sophomore Lindsey Hudspeth (Mount Laurel, N.J.) to knot the game at 51-51 with 8:52 left in the contest.

And with just under eight minutes, Brown's Natalie Bonds' fifth foul of the game sent leading scorer O'Keefe to the line to try for Bryant's first lead of the game. But when O'Keefe couldn't convert, the Bears reclaimed their edge. The junior forward retied it again seconds later at 53-53, but Brown would then take a one-point lead that they would hold until freshman Shannon Wood (Gorham, Maine) brought the game back to a 58-58 draw making the front end of two from the stripe.

Hudspeth got Bryant its first lead of the outing with 3:43 to play off the back end of two free throws, but Brown took it back with a pair of unanswered baskets for a three-point edge with 1:29 left to play, 62-59. An O'Keefe basket cut that lead to 62-61, and with 11 seconds left, she went to the line with another chance to take the lead.

The junior knotted the game, 62-62, with her first but missed the second, opening up the opportunity for the home side to complete the last-second win.

And with 5.1 seconds to play, that's exactly what Brown did. A foul on Hudspeth sent Courtney Lee to the line, where she hit both to nail down the 64-62 victory.

O'Keefe's 26 points were a game high and season high for both O'Keefe and the Bulldogs. She added 11 rebounds to record her fourth double-double of the year and the only one of the contest. The Bulldogs outscored the Bears in the second frame, 33-29, and outshot the home team on the day, 39.3 percent to 35.3 percent. Brown's Karly Grace paced the Bears with 20 points, including going 6-for-10 from beyond the arc.

In the first half, the Bulldogs came out flat, their offense stifled by five early Brown 3-pointers -- four coming from Grace -- to go down, 21-11 with 11:27 to play in the frame. Brown went on an 8-0 run over nearly three minutes in the middle of the half to get the double-digit lead, but Bryant chipped away at that advantage to come back to within a single basket, 25-22 with 7:43 showing, thanks mainly to a pair of Wood treys and the second 3-pointer of the session from O'Keefe.

A second chance basket from Wood, the result of a strong rebounding effort from junior Andrianne Mayshar (West Boylston, Mass.), cut the Bears' lead to just two, 27-25, with just under five minutes to play, but the Bulldogs would score just twice more in the half and allow the home side to get eight to enter halftime down, 35-29.

Bryant shot just 36.4 percent in the opening frame to Brown's 42.4 percent, also getting outrebounded, 24-19. O'Keefe's eight points at the break paced the Bulldogs, while Grace led the game with 14 points off 4-of-7 shooting from downtown.

THE HIGHLIGHTS
O'Keefe showed her resiliency as she avenged a two-point outing at Holy Cross with her 26-point effort in the very next contest. The junior co-captain kept the Bulldogs close against Brown doing what she was brought in to do: lead the Bryant offense.

IT FITS THE PATTERN

The Bulldog loss to Brown on Saturday fits into a pattern that Bryant has played into all season: a win, followed by two losses. Bryant has followed the win-loss-loss pattern from the very first game of the season without exception.

BENCH BLISS
Junior guard Kristin Mraz has proved herself more effective coming off the bench than she was as a starter the first five games of the season. The first sub off the bench for coach Mary Burke and the Bulldogs, Mraz shoots 31.7 percent off the bench as compared to 23.5 percent shooting as a starter, and averages 2.7 assists per contest in her non-starting role.

FEELING HOT HOT HOT
Despite a 1-2 record over the first three games of January, the Bulldogs can thank Mraz for keeping the games close as of late. The junior guard caught fire, leading the team with 12 points per game while shooting 52.2 percent from the floor (12-of-23), including hitting 6-of-10 from long distance, 85.7 percent from the line (6-of-7) and averaging a team-best 30 minutes a game. She also dished out 10 assists with a trio of steals and collected 11 rebounds.

ALL-TOURNAMENT HONORS
Junior co-captain Kelsey O'Keefe and sophomore forward Siamone Bennett were named to the Fordham Holiday Tournament all-tournament team for their performances over the two-day classic Dec. 28 and 29. O'Keefe, who led the team in points both games, averaged 15.5 points per contest, while Bennett averaged 13.5 points per outing.

BURKE EARNS 250TH CAREER VICTORY
With a first-round win over Colgate University at the Fordham Holiday Classic on Dec. 28, 18-year head coach Mary Burke earned her 250th career victory. In her 18th season as head coach of the Bryant University women's basketball program, Burke has a career record of 251-243 and has enjoyed two 20-win seasons over her coaching days. She entered 2008-09 with a 246-234 career record. The Bulldogs' have earned four wins so far this season to get Burke to the landmark win.

BABY GRAND
With a layup 43 seconds into Dec. 1's 53-50 win over St. Francis (NY), junior Kelsey O'Keefe became the 19th player in Bryant women's basketball history to pass the 1000-point plateau. The 6-1 forward enters tonight's game with 1,120 points after being the team's top points scorer in each of the past two seasons. O'Keefe is the first player to achieve such a feat since Joanna Skiba ('07) reached the 1000-point plateau against Assumption College on November 30, 2006, and O'Keefe is one of the fastest to reach the landmark.

BURKE NAMED TO INTERSCHOLASTIC LEAGUE HALL OF FAME
Rhode Island hoops pioneer and Bryant head coach Mary Burke has been named among the 12 headed for the RI Interscholastic League Hall of Fame.

A Rhode Island native, Burke was a great multi-sport athlete in the early days of the league's girls sports programs and is one of the best athletic success stories of any of the league's female graduates. She will be inducted on May 6 at the league's annual Hall of Fame induction dinner at the Crowne Plaza in Warwick.

BRYANT JOINS THE DIVISION I NORTHEAST CONFERENCE
In October of 2007, Bryant University officially accepted an invitation to join the Division I Northeast Conference. The school began a four-year transition in the fall of 2008-09 and become a full member of the Northeast Conference in the fall of 2012-13. Bryant will not be eligible for conference or NCAA postseason play during the four-year transition period. Other members of the Northeast Conference include: Central Connecticut, Fairleigh Dickinson, Lond Island University, Monmouth, Mount St. Mary's, Quinnipiac, Robert Morris, Sacred Heart, St. Francis (NY), St. Francis (PA) and Wagner.

HOME SWEET HOME
The Chace Athletic Center has been kind to the Bulldog women in the past, but it will have less chances to be lucky this season in Division I. The women host just eight home contests and are 2-1 in the safe confines of the Chace Athletic Center. The Bulldogs hosted St. Francis (NY) on Dec. 1, getting their first Division I home win, and returned home in January 2009 where they fell to St. Bonaventure in the first game of back-to-back home contests to open the new year. But Bryant got back to winning on Monday with a 63-53 topping of Colgate at home.

The Bulldogs are also shooting better in Smithfield, connecting on 40.7 percent of shots from the floor at home as compared to 35.9 percent away from the Chace Athletic Center. Bryant also converts over 40 percent of 3-pointers at home, connecting on just 26.5 percent on the road.

CROSSING ENEMY LINES
Including members from Bryant's future home in the Northeast Conference as well as Independents, the Bulldogs will compete against seven different Division I conferences in 2008-09. Here is how they've fared so far.
Bryant vs. Division I conferences:
        America East: 1-1
        Atlantic 10: 0-3
        Independent: 0-0
        Ivy League: 0-2
        MEAC: 0-0
        Northeast Conference: 2-1
        Patriot League: 2-3

NO TIME TO WAIT
On November 14, the 2008-09 women's basketball team joined the women's soccer team and women's volleyball team as the only Bulldog programs to get their-ever first Division I win in their first DI contest with a 69-66 win over UNH. Kelsey O'Keefe scored a season-high 17 points in the contest on four three-pointers and 6-for-15 total shooting from the floor while Siamone Bennett and Kristin Mraz also scored in the double digits with 15 and 13 points, respectively. O'Keefe and senior Cara Johnson paced the team on the boards, each collecting seven.

OH CAPTAINS, MY CAPTAINS
Senior Cara Johnson and junior Kelsey O'Keefe have been named the 2008-09 team captains.

UP NEXT
The Bulldogs have a 10-day break before returning to the hardwood at home on January 24 to host another Ivy League opponent in Dartmouth College at 1 p.m. Bryant will stay at home for two games before making the trek to the Pittsburgh area for a pair of contests versus future Northeast Conference opponents.

MAPPING IT OUT
Despite its home in Smithfield, R.I., Bryant boasts no homegrown talent on its 2008-09 roster. Instead, the Bulldogs hail from five different states, with six players coming to Douglas Pike from Massachusetts and six from the tri-state area. The Bay Staters make up much of the junior class (Schermerhorn, O'Keefe, Campbell, Mayshar) and add senior Fontaine and frosh Cowen, while five (Bennett, Mraz, Johnson, Dessingue, Stahura) call New York home. The remainder of the Bryant roster come from New Jersey (Hudspeth) and Maine (Wood).

BULLDOGS ON THE AIR
Fans can catch all of the action this year by logging onto www.bryantbulldogs.com to watch all Bryant home games live online, courtesy of Penn Atlantic. Also this year, track each game live online for free with LIVE STATS by visiting www.bryantbulldogs.com and clicking the Live Stats link.